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S&L #67 Spring 2001

I have my own personal beef with the medical industry, it started consciously around the time I turned 15, eventually all the situations I went through led me to find other paths and made me ultimately become much more aware of my body, how it works, and how to take care of it. I started studying natural medicine 5 or 6 years ago on my own, and have been working at a really quirky independent health food stores for over two years, all that time in the supplement/nutrition department soaking up as much knowledge about natural medicine as possible.

Hard to believe that last issue I was all in a tiffy over not getting any snow, and now we’re full on into the throws of spring. Everything is a blooming and a sprouting and coming to life again. It’s my favorite time of year. I am on top of the world, on top of my life, in love with everything and feeling great.
SO I WENT TO SAN FRANCISCO...

Sometimes I wake from my dreams with the fragments dancing around my head like a loonytoon halo, my mind dangling somewhere on the tightrope border between awake and asleep - just enough time to grasp a few sliver images and scribble them into sentences like code and know I can return later to find the beginning seeds of a story or some jumbled surreal parable about the inner workings of my life.

ECHINACEA
Purple cone flowers are a perfect starting point for budding herbalists (forgive the pun). They are highly useful as medicine, with a long, long history of use. They are easy to grow, easy to use and have no known toxicity. The seeds included with this paper are E. purpuren because in purpurea the leaves contain the medicinal substances as well as the roots. This means that, unlike the more potent E. angustifolia, you can harvest a little medicine without having to kill the plant.

When do you keep the mash and throw away the spirits? When you're saving tomato seeds, that's when.
Were it not for the fact that the some of the frazzled seeds that I fermented last summer have already sprouted... they were about 1/16 inch high on the day of the winter solstice I would still be doubting it myself.

KITCHEN REMEDIES
Use cloves to soothe a toothache
A compound in cloves called eugenol kills pain and fight infection. Apply clove oil, which you'll find in your local health-food store, to temporarily numb an aching tooth. You can also sprinkle powdered cloves on a cut to prevent infection.

INSTRUCTIONS: put 1/2 to 1 cup store bought (read STERILE) potting soil into a zip-loc sandwich bag, add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of vermiculite and/or peat moss add 1/2 teaspoon or less of seed and mix well. Add enough water to moisten the sprouting medium, then seal the bag and put it a windowsill on the east or west side of the house. Open it every few days to let in some fresh air and check for sprouts. Some plants sprout in a few days, others may take weeks or even months -